Track 1 from The Cloud of Unknowing (Tompkins Square, 2012)Track 2 from The Magic Place (Asthmatic Kitty, 2011)Track 3 from The Effective Disconnect (Kranky, 2010)Track 4 from soundtrack for a film that doesn't exist (s/r, 2011)Track 5 from Copper Lemon Zinc (direct download; ilkae, 2005). RIP Walter Carpenter. You are missed.Track 6 from Accordion and Voice (Important, 2007)Track 7 from For Alto (Delmark, 1970)Track 8 from Unjust Malaise (New World, 2005). Read more of Eastman's extraordinary story on fellow composer Mary Jane Leach's website and in Kyle Gann'sliner notes to this near-exhaustive compilation.Track 9 from Legs to Make Us Longer (Red Ink, 2004)Track 10 from Tabula Rasa (EMI, 1998). Played by the Bournemouth Sinfonietta.Track 11 from Mom's (New Albion, 1992). Also seek out the album, if only to read this great piece on the title track and to marvel at the fact that it was made in 1992.Track 12 from As Performed by... (Domino, 1997)

Intro and Track 18 from the PBS documentary Dancing Outlaw (1991)Track 2 is an Entombed cover available when you pledged to et9's new album campaign on PledgemusicTrack 3 from Adult Swim's singles seriesTrack 4 i really wish i remember where this was from.Track 5 from the album Summer '08Track 6 from the album Lupon (Tender Loving Empire)Track 7 from the album Sounds from the Gulf Stream (K)Track 8 and Track 16 from the great 3CD rare gospel set Fire in My Bones (Tompkins Square)Track 9 from the "Horseheads/Whiskey Shoes" 7"Track 10 from Jessica "Can't" Rylan's early blown-out easy listening CD Can't Vs. The World. More on the great story behind this disc at the WFMU blogTrack 11 from Mac's 2012 WFMU premium Hits of the Acoustic Era. Probably still available for a station donation.Track 12 from Ugly (Don Giovanni). i've got a lot of love for Marissa Paternoster's voiceTrack 13 from Butterfly Kiss (K)Track 14 from sort-of covers record Sing Along With Satellite High, "the exact opposite of... dorks on youtube play[ing] rap songs on acoustic guitar"Track 15 from Medically Necessary and also Weird Paul's greatest hits record 25 Lo-Fi YearsTrack 17 from the Wanda Jackson tribute comp Hard Headed WomanTrack 19 from Elevation (Impulse!)

Tuesday, 11 September 2012

i haven't blogged for hundreds of thousands of years, and so in the next few weeks i will attempt to share a bunch of old stuff that i have done and not written about in that time. Starting in reverse order, here's some notes about a new mix.

i haven't got a regular radio gig at the moment, so i've started uploading weekly mixes with Mixcloud.

Because Mixcloud has a useless 1,000-character description limit, i can't provide the proper notes that i want to, so i'm going to post them here. Here's the first, for Hosking's Consisto. Download it here.

Sunday, 27 May 2012

"What i'm enjoying lately, and i only remember one of them off-hand, but i keep coming across aphorisms that you hear all the time and then you find you loathe when you really think about them. One of them is the Benjamin Disraeli1 quote – "anyone who is not a liberal when he is young has no heart, and anyone who is not a conservative when he is old has no head." And my thought is, when you start creating pithy little aphorisms to justify heartlessness, you already know you've wandered off the path of righteousness."

reconnected with some amazing old friends, met some excellent new friends both IRL and OTI.
met some rad internet people IRL [hi Jesse, Ruby Kid].

graduated journalism school seemingly just as the industry caves in on itself [hi Newsies].
went to a series of excruciating job interviews [ask me about the one where i ended up talking about Skrewdriver].

continued to learn and unlearn a load of important stuff.
didn't protest awful shit enough.

developed flash crushes on way too many beautiful & awesome women both IRL and OTI [hi... no, not telling you].

read some books, watched films & TV, saw some art. listened to a shitload of fantastic music, didn't actually hear that much bad music at all. saw some amazing live shows, including someone i've been waiting about 13 years to see. embraced poptimism.

didn't play enough [any given musical instrument]. bought a trumpet. started writing a rap album. helped film a music video. formed a band [hi El].

ate some great food, ate prolly way more really shitty food, drank enough coffee to poison a town's water supply.
continued to be pretty unhealthy. discovered i actually really like olives.

engaged in too many Herculean struggles with my own mood swings.

didn't blog enough. tracked the amazing rise of the Horse_ebooks phenom. did my bit to make a washed-up '90s alt-rock singer eat 2 dozen eggs on YouTube. went mildly viral tweeting about a Beefheart/Bono kerfuffle.

ran up the back of a minibus in traffic.

found a stray dog, returned the dog. sat next to a dog in church. saw some great fish and other marine life.

plans for 2012: stop being quite so desperately unhealthy; rejuvenate this blog and get back into writing about music more; release about 5 more records; hopefully meet a load more rad people; generally get my weight up in all ways except literally.

shout out to everyone i love and everyone who loves me.
and if 2012 doesn't bring about that much-vaunted Mayan apocalypse i'ma start the shit myself.

Friday, 9 December 2011

"I wish a rock guy would cover an R&B song. That way I could learn that underneath
all that popularity and blackness there's something great." ~ Jesse Thorn

Ahahahaha

Nice one, Leona. A+ trolling of all those metal/punk/rock groups and fans that still think pop/R'n'B covers are hilarious and novel i.t.y.o.o.l. 2011.

Anyway, this version doesn't sound any worse to me than Reznor's painfully teenage original (he was nearly 30 years old when The Downward Spiral came out) or Johnny Cash's curiously-revered-but-nonetheless-drab-by-his-high-standards take. Actually, if you're gonna do a song this laughably bombastic and self-regarding, it strikes me that big stadium-pop production, clunking cardboard-box snares, melodramatic vocal dive-bombing, and artificial string sections are by far the most honest ways of approaching it.